Should Germany Be Held Solely Responsible For World War 1?

World War 1 was triggered by the death of Austria-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, killed by a Serbian terrorist of the Black Hand organization, a Serbian nationalist secret society. A month after the assassination, on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary, dissatisfied with Serbia's response to her ultimatum declared war on Serbia. So who was really responsible for the outbreak of World War 1? During my research, I have found that historians have debated this question since the very early stages of the war and it is also still remains controversial. Some historians thought it was Austria-Hungary and some of them said Serbia, Russia or Germany. In my own opinion, I think that all of them should responsible for the outbreak of World War 1, but Germany should held more responsible for the outbreak of war in 1914 but not solely.

Germany encouraged Austria-Hungary to be completely unreasonable in its dealings with Serbia. From this, we can see that German should be held primarily responsible for the outbreak of World War 1, because it could have applied pressure on Austria to secure peace but it actually is encouraged her to attack Serbia.